Dr Edward Humphries

Deputy Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, presiding Dean, presiding Director, members of the university executive and academic board, staff, family, friends and graduates, thank you for the opportunity to deliver this address today. I also acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, the traditional owners of the land on which the university stands. 

Let me start with a heartfelt congratulations to the graduates and their proud families and friends. Today’s the culmination of many years of hard work, but hopefully also some fun, with lasting friendships forged along the way. When preparing for today, I thought back on my own graduations over the past 20 years. Of those, the one I can clearly remember was in 2004 where the occasional speaker lamented the bleak future ahead of us as graduates of the physical sciences. Fortunately for me he’s been so far incorrect, but that memory has guided me to steer away from prognostication today and instead share a few things I’ve learned so far in my own working life. 
With an education in chemistry, I’m on the one hand quite unqualified to deliver this address to engineering and information technology graduates. On the other hand, I’ve been unqualified for many of the tasks I’ve been asked to do in my career. So, when I received the invitation from the graduations office, I said yes without hesitation. 

As you enter the workforce, don’t be surprised to feel similarly unqualified from time to time; perhaps more often than that. When asked to take on such a task, my strong advice to you, though, is to always say yes. This is the most important thing I’ve learned in my career to this point. Yes is the most powerful word you have in your vocabulary. It opens doors to new challenges, new experiences, new friendships, and it paves the way for personal and professional growth. No, on the other hand, closes doors, shuts down conversations and excludes. As you start building your career, bear this advice in mind: find a way to say yes and accept the resulting challenge as a reward in itself. Do this and the monetary and career rewards generally follow in the end. 
As you get older, it may become more difficult to do so due to commitments of family and life in general, but try to find a way to say yes, even if that has to be yes if, or yes but. As an aside, if any of today’s graduates sitting in the audience right now are considering whether to enter the workforce or undertake further study in a PhD or master’s research degree, I would encourage you to undertake the study now. The most intellectually satisfying years of my life were those I spent working in a chemistry lab solving a problem, looking back honestly that was almost entirely of academic interest. However, the intellectual freedom that comes with full-time postgraduate study is truly unique and prepared me for the workforce in a way that took almost a decade to appreciate. 

I’ve given this advice to every graduate that I’ve offered a job to since becoming a manager with Applied Materials, but so far nobody has taken it. Perhaps my odds are slightly better today with approximately 200 graduates here. I find it quite fitting to have engineering and information technology disciplines graduating today in the same ceremony. Historically, these specialisations have been unrelated. My own employers relied on mechanical, hydraulic and chemical engineers to develop our products; however, we now have those engineers working alongside electrical engineers, data scientists, and IT specialists in project teams to turn our traditional minerals processing equipment into intelligent mechanical devices. What’s now known as the Internet of Things was born with the first internet-connected refrigerator, which was launched by LG in the year 2000. That product was a spectacular failure, and for good reason. Each fridge retailed for $20,000 and was packed with features nobody wanted 20 years ago. 

Today, most industrial equipment has an internet connection as a standard feature, predictive failure sensors and data analysis services to prevent unplanned downtimes and provide other functionality. These machines and services aren’t developed by individuals; they’re developed by multidisciplinary teams of engineers, data scientists and programmers, and the critical links in these teams are the individuals who can work across the divides of specialisation, a skill that comes from a habit of continuous learning and curiosity. 

You can have a rewarding and satisfying career as a specialist, but being able to work at the blurry interfaces between specialisation is where the power of people working in teams can be unleashed. In the past, great leaps forward were made by generalists, but increasingly, technology and the sheer volume of accumulated human knowledge have made it almost impossible to be a true generalist in the mould of a Benjamin Franklin. The modern generalist is someone with deep knowledge in their specialisation who continually acquires new skills and knowledge in adjacent fields. In my view, the most practical way to do this is to take advantage of the diversity around you, realise that everyone that you meet has something to teach you and that you shouldn’t be afraid to ask them to do so. 

I know how much I’ve gained from opportunities to ask a now-retired financial director all kinds of questions about such exciting subjects such as costings, financial analysis and management accounting. I’ve yet to meet the person who wasn’t willing to educate an interested student under the right circumstances. I’m pleased to say my experience with UTS graduates tells me that this institute has a fantastic record of instilling this thirst for knowledge, so you’re all well prepared in this respect. 

Since the first industrial revolution, the need for continuous learning throughout a working life has increased with each passing generation. One particularly depressing futurist claims that in the future we’ll all have seven or eight jobs and be working for a number of employers simultaneously rather than a single employer in a regular full-time job. To me, that sounds like a miserable and almost dystopian future and one that I’m not sure I believe in; however, the core of the idea is that jobs and the nature of work will change, but in fact this has always been the case. My first day of work after graduation in 2004 when I joined the 3M company, I was handed a mobile phone and a laptop. In that company, I had peers who were only seven or eight years ahead of me – seven or eight years older than me – who could remember a time when the email computer was a shared terminal between five or six staff per office. Within my current workplace, I’m impressed by the daily – I’m impressed on a daily basis by the adaptability of draftspeople who started their career by using pen and paper and working at the drawing board and then developed entirely new skillsets to remain relevant as CAD became the standard tool for design. 

These technologies continue to advance, but so far none have been created to replace human creativity. My own view is that this will remain the case, and the ever-increasing power of technology will serve to augment what humans can create, rather than replace us. That’s as close as I’ll go to predicting the future today. Despite the uncertainty of that future, you’re all recipients of what I think is the greatest gift a society can bestow upon an individual. Higher education teaches us how to think, and this is far more valuable than any vocational skills you may acquire during your time at university. You leave here today well -equipped to face the challenges before you, and I wish each of you success, and more importantly satisfaction, in whatever path you choose to take from here. Thank you.